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SPEECH OF THE HON. THEODORE P. SHONTS 
CHAIRMAN OF THE ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION 
BEFORE THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 
CINCINNATI, OHIO 

ON THE EVENING OF JANUARY 20, 1906 



Class 

Book 








































//^ 


SPEECH OF THE HON. THEODORE P. SHONTS 
CHAIRMAN OF THE ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION 
BEFORE THE COMMERCIAL CLUB 
CINCINNATI, OHIO 

ON THE EVENING OF JANUARY 20,1906 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1906 











-rcr\4- 

<©6l 


t 







APR 14 1906 

L). of 0 . 
















SPEECH OF THE HON. THEODORE P. SHONTS, CHAIRMAN 
OF THE ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION, BEFORE THE 
COMMERCIAL CLUB, CINCINNATI, OHIO, ON THE EVEN¬ 
ING OF JANUARY 20,1906. 


Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Commercial 

Club: 

It is a pleasure to speak of the Panama Canal in the 
home of Secretary Taft, an$ to an assemblage of his 
neighbors and friends. He is a son of Cincinnati 
and of Ohio in whom the whole country takes pride, 
for his services on the bench, in the Philippines, and 
in the Government at Washington have brought 
honor, not only to his native city and State, but to 
the American name before the world. I consider it a 
high privilege to be associated with him under the 
direction of President Roosevelt in the conduct of the 
most stupendous enterprise to which this nation has 
ever put its hand. He brings to this task the broad 
intellectual grasp, the calm, clear judgment, the com¬ 
plete patriotic devotion, and the inflexible, uncompro¬ 
mising, and outspoken honesty r that are the distin¬ 
guishing traits of his public career. The value to the 
(3) 



4 


country of the services of such a man in its govern¬ 
ment can not be overestimated. When the canal shall 
have been completed—as completed it surely will be— 
no small share of the credit for the great achievement 
will be due to his wise counsel, inspiriting cooperation, 
and unflagging faith in the ability^ of the American 
people to solve any problem with which they are 
confronted. 

I am here to-night to talk, as I have said, not of an 
experiment, but of an assured success. We are not 
merely going to build the Panama Canal—we are 
building it. Preparation is a part, and a most impor¬ 
tant part, of the work of construction. When that 
shall have been fully and thoroughly accomplished, a 
great step forward will have been taken. You can 
not erect a house until you have laid the foundation. 
You can not run a railway until you have laid the 
tracks. You can not build a chimney by placing the 
top bricks first. These are trite truisms, but there 
seem to be people in this country to whom thej r are 
novelties. We are approaching the end of the pre¬ 
liminary work. We have made the Isthmus a health¬ 
ful place in which to work. We are getting the line 
of the canal into a condition which will enable us to 
operate an excavating plant to the best advantage, and 
we are assembling the plant with which the work is to 
be done. When you bear in mind that we have been 
engaged in this preparatory task barely six months, 


5 


that we have been compelled to carry it forward in a 
tropical country, mainly a wilderness, not accessible 
by railway, but 2,000 miles at sea and 2,000 miles from 
the base of suppty, and that most of the material en¬ 
tering into the work had to be manufactured to order 
before it could be shipped to the scene of action, I 
think you will admit that the amount of time consumed 
has not been unreasonable. 

I shall not burden you with details of the prepara¬ 
tory work. These were set forth by me in a speech 
before the American Hardware Manufacturers’ Asso¬ 
ciation, a few weeks ago, and are to be found in the 
recent report of the Commission to Congress. Briefty 
summed up, they have resulted, first, in converting 
the Isthmus from a hotbed of disease into as healthful 
a place for work of the kind in hand as could be found 
in any tropical country—with reasonable care a man 
can go there to live now with no more serious menace 
to his health than he would encounter in frontier work 
in our own country; second, the workers of all grades 
are provided with suitable and sanitary quarters, 
wholesome food in abundance and at reasonable prices, 
and pure water; third, an antiquated, inadequate, and 
poorly manned railway S 3 -stem has been improved and 
reorganized on modern lines, and provided with up-to- 
date equipment of locomotives and cars; fourth, new 
wharves equipped with modern mechanical appliances, 
commodious terminal 3 T ards at both ends of the rail- 


6 


way, extensive warehouses, suitable machine shops, 
and a modern coal-hoisting plant are rapidly approach¬ 
ing completion; fifth, more than $9,000,000 has been 
expended in the purchase of supplies and material, 
largely for an operating plant in the actual work of 
excavation, and the bulk of this investment is already 
on the Isthmus. 

This vast quantity of supplies has been purchased 
almost exclusively in the United States. In accordance 
with our policy of buying in the cheapest markets, we 
have bought chiefly in the United States because its 
markets, in the main, are the cheapest in the world 
for the products that we need in this work. The 
American laborer is the highest priced in the world, 
but we can buy the results of his work more cheaply 
here than abroad, because of his superior skill and 
because of the intelligent interest which he as an 
American citizen takes in his work. In other words, 
he puts more brains into the product of his hands, 
because he is a citizen of a free country and his mind 
has been enlarged and his ambition stimulated by 
active participation in the duties of citizenship. 

While buying our supplies in the United States we 
have seen to it that the entire country should be 
admitted on equal terms to the competition for furnish¬ 
ing them. Our theory is that since the American 
people are to defray the cost of building the canal the 
whole American people should be treated alike in the 


7 


opportunity to derive legitimate industrial and com¬ 
mercial profit from the outlay for construction. One 
of the first acts of the present Commission after taking 
office was the adoption of a polic}^ designed to place all 
manufacturers and producers in all parts of the country 
on equal terms in regard to shipment of goods to the 
Isthmus. The chief features of this policy were: 

(1) We threw open all terminal facilities on the 
Isthmus to all steamship lines on equal terms. Prior 
to this time the Panama Railroad, being a private and 
not a government corporation, had endeavored to force 
the shipment of all canal supplies by way of New 
York. The management of the railroad required that 
steamship lines from Gulf ports should charge the 
same rates from their ports to Colon as were charged 
by the railroad’s stmmship line from New York 
to Colon, under penalty of being deprived of 
the railroad’s dock facilities at its terminals. 
The result of this was to give great advantage to the 
port having the shortest rail line from point of pro¬ 
duction. As New York was much nearer the centers 
of production than Gulf or Pacific coast ports, it 
secured the bulk of the business. When the Govern¬ 
ment assumed control, by purchase, of the Panama 
Railroad, one of the Commission’s first acts was to 
notify all steamship lines that they could have the use 
of the railroad’s terminal facilities on the Isthmus on 
the same terms as the steamships of the railroad com- 
483a—06-2 


8 


pany, without regard to any rates they might make 
from their ports of departure. 

(2) We required all bids for supplies to be made 
e. i. f. the Isthmus—that is, all bids to include cost of 
delivery on the Isthmus. 

(3) In order to prevent any charge of discrimination 
in rates, as between New York and the Gulf and Pa¬ 
cific coast ports, we separated the Panama Railroad 
Steamship Line from the Panama Railroad and threw 
open the use of that steamship line to all railway con¬ 
nections at New York on agreed percentage divisions. 
We gave our direct-rail connections at New York, as 
well as all others, the privilege to make rates from all 
producing territory clear through to Colon. Under 
this policy the manufacturer situated on the line of a 
railroad leading to New York has no advantage what¬ 
ever over the one situated on lines of railway running 
to Gulf ports. Each can arrange for his own rates 
straight through to Colon. We-went a step further 
and adopted the policy of charging the Government 
on the Commission’s shipments from New York ex¬ 
actly the same rates that are paid by any other ship¬ 
pers from that port locally. Our object in these vari 
ous acts was to protect the United States Government 
from any charge of favoritism to any section of the 
country or to any port. 

If we had made low rates from New York on our own 
materials it would have been charged that these were less 


9 


than private capital could afford to grant, and that 
therefore the Government should install similar serv¬ 
ice from the South Atlantic and Gulf ports. We 
should also have been charged with rebating to our¬ 
selves as against other shippers, thus violating the law. 
What we did was to put the Government on a parity 
with every other shipper, and all sections of the coun¬ 
try on exacth r the same footing. If by reason of these 
policies competition among the railways in different 
sections of the country shall result in rates below a 
profitable basis the Government will be the gainer, 
because it will get the benefit of a reduced cost in the 
price of its material delivered on the Isthmus. In no 
case can the Government be a party to any kind of 
discrimination. 

You, gentlemen, being situated about equally dis¬ 
tant from the Gulf and the seaport, are especially-fa¬ 
vored under this policy. You will get the benefit of the 
competition of the railways leading through both gate¬ 
ways, and should be able to secure very reasonable 
rates of transportation on any goods you may produce 
and desire to sell which enter into the construction of 
the canal. 

I come now to a branch of this subject to which I 
have referred in 1113^ address before the Manufacturers'’ 
Association, and also in the Commission’s report to 
Congress, and I bring it up again because there is 
nothing connected with the construction of the canal 


10 


that surpasses it in importance in its bearing on results. 
I refer to the labor question. 

The character of labor employed on the Isthmus 
has more to do with the time it will take to build the 
canal—more to do with the cost of construction—than 
any other determining' factor. 

There is no insuperable difficulty in the way of the 
construction of the canal from an engineering* point 
of view and with any ordinary class of labor. The 
serious problem is to get what will be considered in 
this country anything like an ordinary class of labor. 
In examining, this question we have studied and dis¬ 
cussed the merits of labor of nearly all nationalities 
available for the purpose. The chief difficult} 7 with 
which we have to contend in the employment of ori¬ 
ental labor lies in the laws which hedge about its use. 
In order to comply with the letter and spirit of these 
laws, the best that we can do is to let out the work 
by contract, advertise and secure the lowest bidder, 
who will be nothing more or less than an agent. 
He will secure the labor, deposit the money required 
by the government of the country from which the 
laborer comes for the sustenance necessary to the sup¬ 
port of his family while he is away, and advance the 
money for the necessary transportation. All this is to 
be included in the cost of the labor delivered on the 
Isthmus, in addition to the agent’s remuneration, mak¬ 
ing it very high priced. The Government must pro- 


11 


tect itself against the charge of forcing involuntary 
servitude, and hence it can adopt no safeguards which 
will prevent the labor from leaving the Isthmus the 
day after arrival, thus losing the money necessary to 
get it there, with no return whatever. The result of 
this is practically to make Oriental labor prohibitive 
in the construction of the canal. 

Experiment with Italian laborers, while not made on 
a large scale, has not been satisfactory, for the reason 
that they do not seem possessed of great vitality, and 
succumb quickly to tropical fevers. 

The West Indian negro that we are using has but 
little life and ambition in' him. We are practically 
trying to wield an inert mass, with the result that 
we are not getting over 25 per cent, or, from a 
most liberal point of view, 33i per cent of the 
efficiency of the most ordinary labor in the United 
States. We are now arranging to experiment 
with 1,000 laborers from the north of Spain. This 
class of labor was used to great advantage by Sir 
William Van Horn in the construction of his 350 
miles of railroad in Cuba. While not tall, they are 
of muscular build, docile in temperament, and willing 
and industrious workers, with enough ambition to 
want to become subforemen and foremen in their 
work. In other words, besides being laborers they 
have a spark of ambition which makes it possible 
to develope them into something better than brute 


12 


force. These men have the further advantage of 
being white, and of speaking the language which 
most of our foremen either know or rapidly acquire 
after reaching the Isthmus. 

So far as the labor in the United States is concerned, 
we might as well recognize the facts. The best quality 
of this labor is regularly employed, because of the 
great industrial activity here. This confines our se¬ 
lection to those employed only as extra men and those 
seeking employment, who of course will not grade as 
high as those regularly employed. In order to get 
these men in some branches of trade, it is necessary to 
pay larger wages than are paid in this country, for 
they would rather have extra work, with a chance of 
regular employment here, than leave their own 
country. 

Before closing my remarks in regard to the im¬ 
portance of labor in this enterprise, I wish to repeat 
and to emphasize the opinion I have expressed on for¬ 
mer occasions in regard to the application of the eight- 
hour law. The present wage varies from 80 cents to 
$1.04 per day in gold. As compared with the best 
common labor in the United States, its efficiency is 
rated at from 25 to 33 per cent. Over 80 per cent of 
the employees of the canal are now and will continue 
to be alien laborers. A majority of the other 20 per 
cent employed will be in a clerical, a supervisory, or 
in some other capacity to which the various labor laws 


13 


of the United States are not applicable. It is to this 
kind of labor we are compelled to apply the eight- 
hour law—that is, to aliens who know nothing of the 
law’s existence until they arrive on the Isthmus. 

Such application will increase the labor cost of canal 
construction at least 25 per cent. You can readily see 
why this will be the case. We pay our laborers by the 
hour. If we can employ them for only eight hours a 
da}^ we can give them work for only forty-eight hours 
a week. If we can employ' them for ten hours a day 
we can give them sixty hours a week. They will 
accept a smaller hourly wage for sixty hours a week 
than they will for forty-eight hours. As a matter of 
fact, the skilled laborers prefer a ten-hour day, and 
many' of them have asked for it, desiring to get the 
extra two hours’ pa}\ When they work overtime on 
the eight-hour plan they expect to get time and a half. 

It is obvious that by forcing the eight-hour day upon 
us, millions of dollars will de added to the cost of con¬ 
struction. American labor in this country will have 
to pay its share in the consequent increase of taxation, 
and for no appreciable benefit, for, as I have shown 
you, there are only a very few American laborers on the 
Isthmus. There is no question of American labor 
involved in Isthmus work, and I repeat what the Com¬ 
mission has urged in its annual report, that it is a mis¬ 
take to handicap the construction of the Panama Canal 


14 


with any laws save those of police and sanitation, and 
that labor on the Isthmus should be excluded from the 
application of the eight-hour law, the contract-labor 
law, the Chinese exclusion act, and an}^ other law passed 
or to be passed by' Congress for the benefit of American 
labor at home. 

As I said at the beginning of these remarks, our pre 
paratory work is nearing completion. It has, in fact, 
advanced as far as we can carry it safety until we know 
definitety the type of canal we are to construct, whether 
it is to be sea level or high level. It is of the utmost 
importance, therefore, that decision as to this type be 
reached at the earliest possible moment. I had hoped 
when I accepted your invitation that before the time to 
address you should arrive the Advisory Board would 
have made its report, and I should be at liberty to 
speak freely about it, and to discuss both the details of 
the plan decided upon and the methods to be employed 
in its execution. The members of the Board consumed 
much more time in their deliberations than they had 
anticipated, and as the two reports which they have 
decided to make are not yet before the Commission, it 
would be obviously improper for me to enter upon the 
subject now. 

I am glad to say, however, that whatever may be 
the type decided upon it will take us but a short time 
to complete the arrangements for beginning at once to 


15 


carry its details into execution on a comprehensive 
scale. We shall divide the work into sections and pre¬ 
pare specifications asking for bids for contracts for 
such portions of the work as we think can be done ad¬ 
vantageously in that way. We are strongly in favor 
of doing the work by contract if the t} T pe of canal and 
the prices bid will permit. One of the chief benefits 
we have derived from the preparatory work is the 
accumulation of knowledge as to the nature of ma¬ 
terial to be handled and the cost of handling it, which 
will enable us to judge whether or not such bids as we 
may receive will make it desirable to have the work 
done by contract. # 

Gentlemen, we are treating this task as a great busi¬ 
ness enterprise and are seeking to accomplish it by the 
application of strict business methods, paying no heed 
to politics or political 44 pulls.” Our sole aim and pur¬ 
pose is to give the American people the full worth of 
every dollar they put into the work, and to hand over 
the work completed to them at the earliest possible 
day. So long as we continue in control of the job it 
will be managed on these principles and on these alone. 
When it becomes apparent that we will not be per¬ 
mitted to build the canal in that way we will step aside 
and let somebody else take it in hand. In a recent 
message to Congress, President Roosevelt, who is the 
supreme director of the work, every step of which has 


16 


been taken with his personal knowledge and with his 
approval, said: 

All our citizens have a right to congratulate themselves upon 
the high standard of efficiency and integrity which has been 
hitherto maintained by the representatives of the Government in 
doing this great work. If this high standard of efficiency and 
integrity can be maintained in the future at the same level 
which it has now reached, the construction of the Panama Canal 
will be one of the features to which the people of this Republic 
will look back with the highest pride. 

The members of the Commission and those associ¬ 
ated with them in the task ask no higher approval 
than that, neither do they think that any other is 
necessary to carry, conviction to the minds of the 
American people. In the same message the President 
also said: 

From time to time various publications have been made, and 
from time to time in the future various similar publications 
doubtless will be made, purporting to give an account of job¬ 
bery, or immorality, or inefficiency, or misery, as obtaining on 
the Isthmus. I have carefully examined into each of these 
accusations which seemed worthy of attention. In every 
instance the accusations have proved to be without foundation 
in any shape or form. They spring from several sources. 
Sometimes they take the shape of statements by irresponsible 
investigators of a sensational habit of mind, incapable of observ¬ 
ing or repeating with accuracy what they see, and desirous of 
obtaining notoriety by widespread slander. More often they 
originate with, or are given currency by, individuals with a per¬ 
sonal grievance. The sensation mohgers, both those who stay at 


17 


home and those who visit the Isthmus, may ground their accusa¬ 
tions on false statements by some engineer, who, having applied 
for service on the Commission and been refused such service, now 
endeavors to discredit his successful competitors; or by some 
lessee or owner of real estate who has sought action, or inaction, 
by the Commission to increase the value of his lots, and is bitter 
because the Commission can not be used for such purposes; or on 
the tales of disappointed bidders for contracts; or of officeholders 
who have proved incompetent or who have been suspected of 
corruption and dismissed, or who have been overcome by panic 
and have fled from the Isthmus. 

Every specific charge relating to jobbery, to immorality, or to 
inefficiency, from whatever source it has come, has been immedi¬ 
ately investigated, and in no single instance have the statements of 
these sensation mongers and the interested complainants behind 

i 

them proved true. The only discredit inhering in these false ac¬ 
cusations is to those who originate and give them currency, and 
who, to the extent of their abilities, thereby hamper and obstruct 
the completion of the great work in which both the honor and the 
interest of America are so deeply involved. It matters not whether 
those guilty of these false accusations utter them in mere wanton 
recklessness or folly or in spirit of sinister malice to gratify some 
personal or political grudge. 

Thus speaks the President. 

A notable specimen of this scandal-mongering litera¬ 
ture was laid before the country a few days ago from 
the pen of a man who had spent twenty-eight hours 
and ten minutes on the Isthmus. The ten minutes are 
important, for a person of such extraordinaiy powers 
of observation and production can collect an enormous 


18 


amount of material in that time. He landed at Colon 
on November 30 at 10 a. m. and sailed away on the 
same steamer from Colon at 2.10 p. m. on December 1. 
In those twenty-eight hours and ten minutes he accu¬ 
mulated a fund of exact knowledge sufficient to enable 
him to draw a general and sweeping indictment of the 
President, Secretary Taft, the Canal Commission, Gov¬ 
ernor Magoon, Chief Engineer Stevens, Colonel Gor- 
gas, and everything that has been done on the Isthmus 
since the American Government came into possession 
of the Canal Zone. 

He has been not merely answered but annihilated by 
Secretary Taft and Mr. Stevens, and I shall waste no 
time with him. One point only will I mention as an 
illustration of his miraculous powers .of observation. 
He said that during a recent rain the volume of water 
was so great in the sewers of Panama that it “ backed 
the sewage up into cellars and ruined man} 7 houses.” 
There is not a cellar in Panama and never has been. 

A few da} r s after this masterpiece of mendacity ap¬ 
peared in print I took up the Washington Post, a news¬ 
paper which is not open to the charge of extreme 
partisan support of the Canal Commission, and read 
therein the following interesting statement: 

Mr. John N. Popham, a former Virginian, who has many 
friends in Washington, was seen yesterday at the Shoreham. For 
the past sixteen years Mr. Popham has been engaged in railway 
building and mining manganese on the Isthmus of Panama and in 


19 


Costa Rica. He was for five years special agent of the United 
States Treasury on the Isthmus, and no man is better qualified to 
speak of the conditions existing in that country. In conversation 
with a Post reporter Mr. Popham said: 

‘‘Prior to last May the conditions on the Isthmus may have 
been open to just and intelligent criticism, caused by the delay in 
improving the physical condition of the Panama Railroad, pur¬ 
chase of necessary rolling stock, and improving the terminal 
facilities. But those conditions are forgotten history. The fair- 
minded residents of the Isthmus appreciate the magnificent 
efforts and splendid results accomplished since that time. 

“The statement made by Mr. Poultney Bigelow is so far from 
being fair, the views so distorted, and the inference so frail, that 
it is only laughed at on the Isthmus, and it was so fully covered 
at home by that part of the President’s communication to Con¬ 
gress the 8th instant, under the heading of “Scandal mongers,” 
that there is but little left for a self-respecting American resident 
of the Isthmus to add. The people of Panama are intelligent, 
capable people. They appreciate the results accomplished; they 
have been and are anxious and willing to continue to help our 
people in the great enterprise that means so much to the whole 
world. 

“After sixteen years’ experience on and in the vicinity of the 
Isthmus, and knowing, as I do, the homes of the West India 
laborer in the great banana-producing districts near Colon, Bocas 
del Toro, and Port Limon, and having for many years employed 
from 400 to 700 Jamaicans daily at our mines, 35 miles from Colon, 
I feel competent to judge and to tell you that the West India 
laborer has never known, and in his most pleasant dreams has 
never hoped for, the splendid care and liberal treatment he is re¬ 
ceiving from our Government on the Isthmus of Panama. 

“My knowledge of the affairs of the Canal Company only 


20 


enables me to speak of conditions on the Isthmus and the work 
in progress there. But in every department of the canal work 
during the past seven months on the Isthmus the people of this 
country can rest assured that the investigation to be made by the 
Senate committee will confirm the following lines found in the 
President’s communication to Congress: ‘The work on the Isth¬ 
mus is being admirably done, and great progress has been made.’ ” 

That, gentlemen, is the testimony, voluntarily 
offered, of a man who can truthfully be called an 
expert. He has not merely made a twenty-eight-hour 
visit to the Isthmus, but has lived there or in its 
vicinity for sixteen years. He is a man of unques¬ 
tioned character, who has represented his government 
honorabl} T there as its financial agent, and who has 
had practical experience in railway building and min¬ 
ing. The testimony of such a man should be final 
against the inventions and slanders not only of one, 
but of any number of scandal-mongers. 

Speaking for the members of the Commission as well 
as for myself, I wish to say with all possible emphasis 
that we not only invite investigation of our acts but 
ask for it as a right. If we are doing our work hon¬ 
estly and efficiently, our hands should be upheld; if 
it is shown that we are doing it inefficiently, we should 
be removed; and if we are doing it dishonestly, we 
should be exposed, convicted, and sent to prison. 
Neither knaves nor incompetents should be permitted 
to have charge of a task of such magnitude. But 


21 


while we court the fullest investigation, we earnestly 
ask that it be absolutely nonpartisan, that it be made 
by persons of character and standing, either in public 
or private life, whose recognized intelligence and fair- 
mindedness are such as to command public confidence, 
and that it be made upon the ground. 

We ask further that the investigation be made 
promptly and ended as soon as it can be and have its 
work done thoroughly. This is absolutely necessary 
if we are to maintain any degree of efficiency in the 
organization. The feeling of uncertainty and unrest 
which constant agitation about the Commission and its 
work creates is destructive of that interest in the work 
which is essential if the best results are to be secured. 
It is impossible to retain good men in the service under 
such conditions. 

We protest in the name of American fair play 
against the dissemination in the United States of libels 
and slanders upon the efficiency and character of faith¬ 
ful workers on the Isthmus who, by reason of their 
absence from their own county, can not defend them¬ 
selves from such assaults. Many of them went to the 
Isthmus before it was made a healthful place in which 
to work, and in doing so faced death from disease as 
the soldier faces it from the bullet on the field of bat¬ 
tle. They saw many of their comrades die from dis¬ 
ease, but they themselves either escaped it entirely or 
recovered from its attack. A more loyal, faithful, 



22 


efficient body of men than these servants of the United 
States on the Isthmus is not to be found anywhere on 
earth. Their devotion to the interests of their country 
entitles them to the gratitude of their fellow-citizens, 
and should protect them from the cowardly attacks of 
that most despicable of all assailants, the man who 
stabs in the back. 

Gentlemen, I believe in the canal; believe that it 
can be built in a reasonable time and believe 
that when, through American generosity and under 
American control, it shall be thrown open to the 
commerce of the world it will be hailed, and will 
prove to be, a priceless boon to all mankind. It 
will justify the faith of the American people in its 
wisdom and wo rid-wide beneficence, and will justify 
also the expenditure of millions of American money 
for its construction. When it shall be opened for 
traffic the position of this nation in relation to the 
trade and commerce of the world will be a most 
favorable one. 

We shall have a virtually continuous coast line from 
the northeastern extremity of Maine to the western 
extremity of Alaska, open alike to the ships of the 
Atlantic and the Pacific, and giving to both the opportu¬ 
nity to trade directly with each other. San Francisco 
will be within 14days of New York by steamers making 
16 knots an hour instead of 60 days, and within 21 days 
of an} 7 English port, instead of 35. 



23 


The west coast of South America will be 3,000 miles 
nearer to our ports than to those of Europe, opening 
to our products an entirely new field of commerce 
which has in it great possibilities^/These are the 
broad, general facts in the case, and I need not 
explain to you that they have in them opportunities 
that are of incalculable value. They open to the 
United States new markets for its products, new op¬ 
portunities for that enlargement of foreign trade which 
our rapidly growing production is demanding year by 
year. 

In this enlargement of industrial and commercial 
activity the whole nation will share. All railway lines, 
including the trans-continental, will be benefited by 
the increased. traffic which will surely follow. New 
steamship lines will be opened to accommodate the new 
trade between the two Americas, and the expanded 
trade with Australia and the Orient. The world’s 
traffic will be changed to new currents, and in the 
change all the nations of the earth will profit. 

The population of the world one hundred years ago 
was estimated at 800,000,000; to-day it is estimated at 
1,600,000,000. In other words, the growth of the 
world’s population during the past century has been 
equal to its accumulated growth during the previous 
ten thousand years. If this ratio of increase shall be 
continuous, the new population of the globe will find 
its home, not in the densely populated districts of 


24 


Europe, but in the sparsely settled countries of North 
and South America. The development of these coun¬ 
tries and of their trade with the Orient, as well as with 
Europe, will all pay tribute to the Panama Canal, for 
it will be in the heart of this new growth and the path¬ 
way of its commerce. 

But great and world-wide as will be the material 
benefits of the canal, the moral and political effects 
will be no less remarkable and no less salutaiy. In 
the United States the inevitable effect will be to de¬ 
velop a stonger and deeper sentiment of national unity" 
than this country has ever known. New and larger 
trade relations will join the Atlantic seaboard and the 
Pacific coast more closely than even the transcontinental 
railways have accomplished, and will tend to unify in 
interest and sentiment all the Americas. 

With the canal open there will be no Atlantic and no Pa¬ 
cific fleet, either in the Navy or in the merchant marine, 
but an American fleet. As an object lesson in the need 
of an Isthmian waterway, the trip of the Oregon in the 
spring of 1898 from San Francisco to the coast of Florida 
was the most convincing argument ever adduced. With 
her powerful machinery working to its utmost limit and 
everything in hm* favor, including a commander of 
the first rank, X) days were consumed in the voyage. 
With the canal open she could have made the trip in ten 
or twelve days and without need of special haste. Instead 
of two navies, we shall have a double navy^ ready for 


25 


all emergencies. The ability to assemble our war¬ 
ships quickly will act as a powerful influence in the 
direction of peace, for it will operate constantly as a 
preventive of war. The high position as a world 
power to which this nation, under the guidance of 
McKinley and Roosevelt and Hay, has advanced during 
the past few years will thus be strengthened and en¬ 
larged, and American influence upon the civilization 
of the world and upon.the welfare of the human race 
will be immeasurably extended. 




















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